Love?

A lot of people have different opinions about love. What love is. Love is a feeling, love is something you work at, It's weird how something so widely shared by millions, is such a different experience to everyone of us. Granted, a lot of us share similar ideas and thoughts.

Love... It truly is difficult. I've probably thought about this every now and then. If you think about it, two people meeting under the right circumstances, in the right time of day, in the right greeting, in the right style, with a the right first impression. And this is only the beginning. After the inital meeting, is then reaction, chemistry, wanting similar things in life, living with certain faults. Love... the act of love, the whatever you define love as, it really is an amazing occurance, no... happening. When i think of what i want from love, even if it is a little love, is to share some bit of that rightness with someone else.

Love happens. (i hope :D)

I call it Pork Tenderloin alla Napoli

INGREDIENTS

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 (3/4 pound) pork tenderloins
• 2 Roma (plum) tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped green olives
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Heat the oil in a pan on medium-high heat. Brown pork on all sides. I had to place all the pork on a baking pan, but if you can fit it, you can just leave it on the pan

Seperately mix all the tomatoes, olives, wine, rosemary and garlic in a bowl. Pour over the pork. Season with salt and pepper.
Put the pan in the preheated oven for 30 mins.
put all the juices/tomates/olives, etc. in the pan gradually mixing in the cream. Stir constantly, bring to a boil and reduce the heat to low. continue cooking for 5 mins, until the sauce is nice and thick.
Then slice the pork and pour the cream sauce over and enjoy!

Serving size for 6

The Searing and baking technique works wonders for keeping the pork moist!
I think this was the most delicious dish, ive made so far. well, the cuban style pork was good too.
The baking of the olive, tomates and rosemary mixed in with the cream was really favorful. the sauce is creamy and rich with a kind of sweet aftertaste.

Taste : 10/10 wonderful~!
Cost : 10/10 - $50 for 9 people. $6-$7 a person
Labor 10/10 - took 35 - 45 min in all

Improvements : add more tomatoes, olives, and rosemary!

This was really simple, not too many ingredients and tasted great!

- fill out! :P

Memorial Day Weekend

This weekend was Memorial Day weekend! I decided it would be fun to throw a BBQ. Play a little B-ball, V-ball. And eat some good food! My culinary donation was Cuban Style Pork Chops!

This recipe was by far the most delicious yet. Ive been a little lazy in getting my 30 in 60, but i'll do my best. So, as you can tell, next up is Cuban Style Pork Chops. I saw one look at the ingredients and i really wanted to try it. Actually i think i've made this before, a little differently, it didnt turn out that great. It was... too bland and not delicious. So this is revised!

Ingredients

1. Orange Juice ( i fresh squeezed mine! took forever!)
2. Lime Juice (Again freshly squeezed i thought it would taste better)
3. Pork Chops (of course)
4. Dried Oregano leaves
5. Fresh Cilantro
6. Olive oil
7. Canola Oil
8. Ground Cumin (This really added flavor)
9. Garlic (chopped)
11. Ham
12. Swiss Cheese
13. Pickles (preferably the flat sandwich kind)

For the sake of feeding more mouths and not cooking the past week, i went all out and bought enough for about 15 people. It cost me about $60 for new ingredients. So about, $4 per person! Amazing! I think about $11 if you just bought it for yourself to make. These are directions for a serving size of 4.

First! Pork Chops
I bought the pork chops from costco. a little thick so i cut each piece in half and then butterflied them. After that i flattened them with a hammer. (make sure to keep the pork in one piece)

Part 2! Sauce
Add 1/4 cup orange juice, 1/4 cup lime juice, as much oregano you like, and the cilantro with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. Mix well, taste to check. This goes on the pork chops after its done cooking! You have my permission to drench! hehe

Next! marinade.
Whisk together 1/2 cup orange juice, 1/4 cup lime juice, 3 tablespoons oregano, 6 cloves of garlic, 3 teaspoons of cumin, and 1/4 cup canola oil in a large baking dish. Add the pork and turn to coat. Cover and let marinate for up to 3 hours in the refrigerator. The longer you leave it the better.

Lastly, The cooking part
I did mine over a charcoal grill. First cook the pork cut side down (this makes it easier later) After you're done, turn it over and add 1 slice of swiss, ham, a few pickles, and another slice of cheese to one half of the piece. Then fold the pork so its a sandwich. make sure to cook the pork till its done and serve! Oh Dont forget the sauce!



Due to the location, i couldnt plate this dish! :) but it still looks good. At the BBQ, i only got one bite! But it was really, really good. The citrisness of the pork was great and the cilantro was awesome! And the Cumin really brought out the Cubanness! The ham and cheese and pickles, man! Yummy.This was really good!

Taste: 10/10 - It was so good!
Cost: 9/10 - i would do this again for BBQ's, better for large groups!
Labor: 8/10 - It's a little time consuming butterfling the pork and hand squeezing oranges and limes, but if you get just OJ and Lemon juice it'll save a lot of trouble.
Overall Rating: 9/10

Improvements: use OJ and lemon juice next time!

I really enjoyed BBQing. All the prep and good company made it that much better! Thanks Everyone!


- Fill Out!

Shrimp Paesano!

I found this recipe online. I didn't know what it was, but it sounded good, so i decided to make it. Since it had the word shrimp in it hahaha.

Ingredients:
1. 1 lb of Shrimp
2. flour
3. Olive oil
4. 2 sticks of butter (yea, this i didnt like)
5. half and half Cream
6. 4 cloves of garlic
7. 1 egg yolk
8. some salt and pepper for seasoning
9. Pasta i used linguine
10. chopped parsley
11. freshly squeezed lemon juice (1 lemon)

For this i only bought the pasta and half and half cream since i've had some of these ingredients from the before dish and at home. Estimated cost to make : $13

There are three parts to this recipe

Part 1 - Shrimp

I soaked the Shrimp in the half and half for about 30 min. After i drained them and lightly sprinked flour on one side of the shrimp. Then i proceeded to pan fry only one side of the shrimp, the flour side.Only cook for about 4 min on med in the vegetable oil (important) While i was doing this i was preheating the oven to 400 degrees. after place the one sided fried shrimp on a cooking pan, fried side down. Put the oven to broil and cook for about 5 min.

Part 2 - Pasta

Just cook whatever pasta to your liking. i choose linguine. boil in a bot for about 7 min, i like my pasta a little softer.

Part 3 - Sauce

This takes like 5 min so do this while you're broiling the shrimp. Make sure that all your ingredients are cold. Take 1 stick of butter and cut in to 1 inch pieces and put in a saucepan with the egg yolk and lemon juice keep stirring, this is important so that the yolk and butter mix correctly, this keeps the sauce to keep the same consistancy. After the butter has melted add the garlic, and parsley. Add in the rest of the butter(cut in 1 inch pieces) And you may add half and half if you want it creamier. I added about 1/4 a cup and found it to be too creamy. Make sure to consistantly stirring throughout this process. After the butter melts the sauce is done!


The shrimp should be done by now, allow to cool a little bit. Mix everything on a plate and enjoy!




I like the plating part a lot :). It looks better than before right? So this dish i really liked the shrimp. It was crispy and soft. I think its the combo of fry and baking the shrimp. The sauce was really rich. too rich and oily. Something i knew, i didnt like how much butter went in to it. But the sauce tasted good. The serving size came out to be about 4.

Taste: 7/10 - wonderful shrimp, sauce was too rich
Cost: 9/10 - Most of the items i had from home so i saved a lot of money
Labor: 6/10 - The shrimp takes a long process but i think it's worth it. Everything else was nice and simple

Overall Rating: 7/10

Improvements: find another sauce that doesnt use a lot of butter. This only tastes good hot, do not store and serve, the crispyness of the shrimp is lost if you do that, i learned that because thats what i did. It didnt taste the same.

Things i liked: i liked the fry oven method, interesting and delicious!

Next up ... dont know yet

- Fill Out!

Shrimp Risotto! Yum!

I've only had risotto once. It was New Years and my brother, the food expert, suggested a place in SF. They served it with lamb. I loved it, just the texture of risotto, it's so good. My brother said it was... eh! ok. I forget the name of the place. It cost about $40. Since then, which was 5 months ago, ive been dying to make this at home and feel that wonderful texture again! So, i started looking for recipe's and how to make a good risotto. I found it to be pretty simple. So here it goes....

Ingredients
1. Arborio Rice (must have, this is what keeps the texture consistant)
2. Shrimp (obviously), i chose tiger shrimp about 12
3. 4 cloves of garlic
4. 1 medium yellow onion (chopped fairly small)
5. 2 sticks of celery
6. 2 quarts of chicken stock
7. fresh parsley
8. butter
9. olive oil
10. Dry Vermouth (i didnt use this, i used desert wine, worked fine)
11. mushrooms
12. fresh tomatoes diced

Not too many ingredients right? this all cost me about $12

So i first boiled the chicken stock and put the shrimp in, to add shrimp flavor to the stock!
5min, done, take the shrimp out cut to bite size pieces. Next, olive oil, butter, onions, mushrooms, celery, garlic in to the frying pan. After about 30 sec on medium i added desert wine, and the rice. So the proper way of making Risotto is you put in the rice, wait for it to soak all the liquid in the pan, then repeat until the rice becomes (al dente! i didn't know what this meant, but according to wiki :rice or beans that have been cooked so as to be firm but not hard) So you start with the vermouth and then wait till its all soaked up and add one scoop of "boiling" chicken stock (the boiling is necessary for the rice to completely soak it all up. So you wait till it soaks up and repeat till the rice is al dente! I then proceeded to add the shrimp and fresh parsley. Then added fresh tomatoes on the dish and Bam! Shrimp Risotto.



I plated it :) hee~! It may not look that great, but it tasted really, really good. I could taste everything from the small amount of butter i added, to the wine. The texture was so creamy, though i am not an expert. the fresh tomatoes and parsley was a refreshing coolness to the warm risotto. The total serving size came out to be about 3. I would definitely cook this again!

Taste: 8/10 - wonderful aroma, even better taste, creamy texture + fresh tomatoes = GOOD!
Cost: 9/10 - compared to the $40 dish i thought this was much better!
Labor: 8/10 - prep=5 min, cooking=30 min & took less than a min to devour it all!
Overall Rating 8/10

Improvements : I think if i used a better quality Shrimp it could've tasted better, and if i seasoned the shrimp. The shrimp was a little bland. and... i wish i had made more! hahaha!

Things I liked : How the rice soaked up all the different flavors of the wine, butter, and stock. You could really taste them all individually

Next up.... Shrimp Paesano

i bought a lot of shrimp :)

- Fill Out!

New Project

So lately a friend of mine started 40 in 40. Forty movies in forty nights and writes about them in his own aspects, what he thinks about them, what kind of things that they remind him of. I thought this would be a great thing to do except i wouldnt want to do the exact same thing he's doing. So.. i decided i would cook. Lets call it my 30 in 60? haha 30 recipes in 60 days. I would cook something new, well, something i havent done before that i think would taste awesome! Now you may ask, 30 in 60? thats only 1/2! I do declare, it is not! muhaha. 1 day to find a recipe and to get fresh ingredients. 1 day dedicated for cooking. I think it'll be fun! and Oh! so delicious, or really bad! hahaha. :)

I'm really excited for this project! If you have any favorite dishes, ill try to cook them the best i can, in a "cheap" way. I figure we spend about $10 on food daily if we were to eat out every day. So i plan to keep the price around $10 for ingredients. :)

1st up, Shrimp Risotto - been dying to eat risotto!

- Fill Out!

Life of Technology

Today as i was walking in the park, i saw an old couple, i think about the ages of late 60's maybe early 70's. They were talking a walk both with cellphones to their ears yapping away. I sat down just to see how long they would continue ignoring each other on their walk. After about 15 min, one of them hung up and dialed another number. !!! Ridiculous! I wonder if in the future, people will cease to have human interaction. It be like calling someone sitting right next to you so you could talk. Its pretty sad, that we are turning in to these machines that require to be "plugged in" at all times. A few weeks ago i lost my cellphone, which i use for pretty much everything. Calling people, Google maps, texts, emails, instant msging. I was without a cellphone for 5 days. At the same time, we had switched internet services and was without internet. I never had such a quiet 5 days of my life! I spent my time studying, reading, exercising. It was so liberating! And then i got a replacement phone and internet and i was hooked on it again. Its like a drug. I dont know what i'd do without my cellphone or internet. But i guess it isnt all bad, phones do help you connect with people in our busy lives. I just think we depend on it too much, like i do.

end of rant!

- Fill Out!

Voice Coach

This all starts with my friend. The past 4 years of my life, I've been developing these relationships with people.. very much like me. They are my classmates. Its weird when you find that at the highly specialized school that you go to, almost all of the people there are almost exactly like you. But, it's really cool, we share a lot with each other and hopefully for our lives to last! Anyways, one of them is getting Married. She's 27, and getting married to her college sweetheart. About a year ago, her(henceforth known as girl), another one of our classmate "noona" (yes, korean, girl, but... married) and I went to a Karaoke Place and sang our hearts out! It was pretty fun, i couldnt understand most of the songs sung but i found out that the noona was a pretty good singer. Kinda hard to tell when the mics are all made to make you sound good. So... the girl asked us if we would sing at her wedding when she got married, i thought she was joking. Apparently not. So we're doing a duet for her wedding which is in 2 weeks. Exciting!

We're singing "Endless Love" by Luther Van Dross and Mariah Carey. Yea, tough song.
So we met up to practice last week and the noona says that she has a friend that is a voice coach and is willing to help us out. AWESOME!!!

I think singing is one of my passions that I often think, i could enjoy spending my life doing. This is supported by people who have told me, i have a good voice. Honestly i thought everyone was just being nice. Well, we met with this person, her name is Lauren, japanese, excellent english, great voice! We met for 2 hours. At first we sang the song, so she could hear what she's dealing with. heh heh, i was kinda nervous. The first hour, we just warmed up, something ive never ever done in my life. It was... enlightening. We would do scales and some breathing exercises. Then we practiced the songs. Along the way she made some comments about both our voices. To me, "Phil, you have a beautiful tenor voice. and have pretty good range!" "When you sing, i can tell you have a lot of confidence." I thought COOOL!!!! Thinking of when i actually started singing, you couldnt hear my voice even on a mic! And then she suggested things i could work on! This i really wanted to know! " Phil, sometimes you have trouble hold a note and sometimes go flat, but its not too much where you can notice it. " "also when singing these type of songs, try to not pronouce the R's. They stick out like a sore thumb. Also pronouce your T's and make your S's short. Try to sound british. Like "Heart" would be "Haart"

In all it was a really enlightening experience. If you count all the exclamation points in the post i think you can tell how excited i was. :) Afterward she was talking to me and said if i ever wanted professional help, i think you could go very far! HEE :D

not that i will, but it's good to know hahaha. Hopefully i could record our performance and post it up online. I hope i dont mess up!

- Fill Out!

the life of riding!

Today....

- woke up, went biking....


Yea, thats pretty much it. It felt awesomely great though. I spent the entire day biking all throughout the great city of Pleasanton! :) heee. I biked through main street, beautiful and lots of pretty underage girls boo! :( they need to be older! anyways, went to Borders, read a little about diet and exercise, did some studying. went in to Sports Challet checked out some new volleyballs! thinking about buying a nice one to use at my open gyms. Yea, anyways, i bought some lights to put on my bike so i could ride at night. :DDD. Maybe one of the best days ive had in a while! heee :)

- Fill Out!

This is why You are Fat!

I was talking to my brother yesterday and he sent me a link to this site that shows a lot of ridiculously fatty foods that people eat.. enjoy!


http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/page/1

i would post the pics, but the pictures just dont do it justice!

Lets Ride!

So last week, i went to Emeryville and took a look at a road bike. My brothers are both really in to biking and so i decided to join on the trend! I bought it. It turns out it was an excellent buy. a close to $600 dollar bike, nearly mint condition for $360! awesome i saved $240! :)
Its a 2003 Giant OCR3. Yes, its beautiful! So far i've only ridden it 4 times, but hopefully it becomes a part of my regular work out. Running and biking. That reminds me, i havent been running in a week. Heh, spring break! But now its over and i'm not so free to eat whatever i want and do what ever i want. Man, i think i may be spoiling myself. After the firs 4 times riding, my butt is so unbelievably sore! well the part in between my guch and my butthole! dont know what its called, but it hurts, i have to walk sideways when i get off after a long ride. :(

anyways, must get back to real life! studying and exercising!

- fill

Anger

I dont know this feeling very well. I guess you could say, i hardly ever feel this emotion anymore. Sometimes i really wish that i could just unleash all my anger and rage for the past i dunno years and feel this immense release of tension.

But i entitle this chapter anger, because i really felt angry Tuesday. and i never, i mean never get angry. I get angry as often as seeing a meteor in the sky. The past 8 years of my life, i've devoted myself to one of only a few things, My Profession, My Family, and Church. Out of these 3, i would say that Church is the one i most am devoted to. But for some reason as i've been of service to this organization, if i want to voice my opinion, i immediately get shut down and am rejected forever. During the 2 1/2 hr meeting, i spoke for 5 min. 4min and 45 sec i was reporting my division of church. the other 15, i was suggesting a better way for us to better serve our community, It took 15 secs for them to cut me off, shut me up and never talk about it again! WT....Freak! I mean i understand that I may still be looked as a child to these 30, maybe 40+ adults, but damn it, show me some respect for what i've done the past 8 years! How hard is it to ask for you to just listen to my opinion. Im not even asking for you to agree with me, i just want to be heard. i never thought that i would ever dislike a part of church, but church politics sucks ass! Its things like this that really make me want to quit, then there'll be no one to take my place and our church youth will fall apart, and the kids will suffer. And i cant do that can I! I wonder if my predecessors went through this and came to the same conclusion. Well, this is me venting.

- fill wants to release all his hidden anger.

A Prescription of Happiness : Take when symptoms of "Joy" are gone

Its already April, Spring is in full bloom, only it keeps raining.

Lately I've been feeling a lot of burden on my life. I'm not sure how this all came to be, but it suddenly hit me that i live my life filling the expectations of others. I dont know if Life is supposed to be like this, but i dont like it at all.

My understanding of how society works is, people cant live without other people, its just not human nature, we're very social creatures. We thrive on being with others, building relationships of all sorts. Nowadays, people thrive of the fight to survive and become a success. And this has now a high value in our lives. We are measured by how successful we are and how long we can keep that success. A perfect example of this is the Ipod. Yea, and ipod. Its a total status symbol. I am socially acceptable and somewhat well off because i have an ipod. Its the same with all products. People mistake these status empowering products as fads and fashion statements, but its really saying, look at me, im rich. I think we've lost all the happiness that we hold in our lives. How often have you hiked up a mountain and just enjoyed the view? When was the last time you enjoyed the scent of a flower? When was the last time you laughed so hard you couldnt breathe? When was the last time you just spent some time not being busy? When was the last time you just closed your eyes to a song and just let your mind and soul feel the beat?

These things all increase happiness. They help us relax and just enjoy life so much more. Why can't we do this everyday? There is no reason, only that we choose not to. Its so sad, It could be one hour, 5 min, even a min of your time and you could be in a totally different place!

Back to my original point though, I busy myself with all these expectations, that i dont have the time to enjoy my life. From this moment on, i promise to myself to be happier!

- fill out~!


Last Run : 12:00 "still haven't broke the 10 min mark!"
Girl : What Girl? Be more proactive Fill!!

World Baseball Classic

Korea v. Japan 1-0. This game was so fun to watch, even though they didnt score a lot. I really want to go the finals in LA, even though baseball isnt that fun to watch haha. Maybe its just the korean pride in me that really wants to hope to see Korea get in to the finals. If Cuba and Austrailia get 1 and 2 then we play Austrailia and go on to round 2! hehehehe.

It's funny how im only a fan of a sport when i have someone to root for. Its really exciting! I really hope Korea wins!

Girl Update - Having a get together again with the "complicated one" heh heh. And im going snowboarding with someone else! :) i hope one of them turns out to something good! Man, i hope dont mess this up. :)

Running Update - So i've been running the past 2 weeks now. I've been running the same route of 1 mile right now and when i started i think i ran it in around 30 min. Yea i know, im really out of shape. Just stopping and running again it took me a while.
Yesterday 13.11 min
Today 12.01 min.
Hopefully i get my mile time below 9 min. Thats my goal for Mar!

- fill out!

The Best Weather in the Whole World

I love the weather right now, its the best weather in the whole wide world.

The scent of fresh cool air filling up your lungs as if it gave you a magical power, the awesomeness of a rainbow soaring across the sky! The gentle breeze of air that hits your skin! The feeling of a new beginning, like the rain washed everything away and cleared you mind and body! There's no other feeling like it! The only other feeling that could come close would the feeling after a haircut, but that doesnt even compare to this!

I feel it gives me power to go on living my life and just do new things! I want to go traveling, to Japan and Korea! That would be fun! I can only imagine~!

But for now, back to my poor excuse for a life! I feel so alone! man i really want to love..... :P

LA Congress

So this past weekend, i went to LA Congress for the first time. If you dont know, LA congress is a weekend of a whole bunch of Catholics coming together listening in on seminars, concerts, talks, mass, etc... in Anaheim. It a Religious Education Congress. The place was right next to Disneyland, literally right next to Disneyland! We fought the urge to just ditch and go. This was a great weekend, i went with Tom, and a few friends from LA. I went to some music seminars and the first one really sucked, but the second one was... pretty good. it was basically a praise session with David Haas, a composer of contemporary catholic music. His voice is so powerful and crisp, he really has an amazing gift. The other seminar i went to was about how life is too complicated and how we've been trained to live these meanless lives. This was really interesting.

This man who gave the seminar was a genius. Spoke 9 different languages fluently, had like 3 Phd's. There were a lot of things that he said that really impacted me.

- "Anamcara" - means soul friend. Finding peace in the moment
he said that peace can be found only by embracing this moment. When you resist life as it is, the only result is pain.

- Spirituality does not equate to what you believe

- "Are we too busy with nothing to be busy for the things we genuinely have interest for?"

This made me think a lot more of where my faith is rooted. Ill be rethinking how i think about faith.

(sigh... i wish my brain was a computer)

Running

So since 3 days ago, i started running. Well, more like jogging or walking while hopping up and down. haha. Man, am i out of shape. I cant remember the last time i ran so much, maybe in high school when it was required. But, it feels good to run, Day one i felt like my heart and lungs were going to die. Today, only 3 days later, i feel much better, i can breathe easier and run farther without stopping haha. Today i ran 1 mile without stopping! yay! The first time i think i walked half of it.

But anyways, i hope to do this almost everyday. And hopefully lose some weight and get more fit in the process. haha, it should be the other way around.

Here's to a healthier life and to losing 50 lbs! lol :)

Faith

How would you describe faith? ill start like all people, webster. Webster's says that faith is an allegiance to duty or a person, belief and trust in and loyalty to God, something that is believed especially with strong conviction.

My brother, the philosopher (really a philosopher), always questions my faith, asking why do you go to church? What reason could you have for being Catholic? Many times before i couldnt answer him. If he asked me today, i still probably couldnt answer him. I once thought that faith was indescribable, it was impossible. I've lived a lot more life since then and experienced possibly much less than before, but i a Catholic, mostly because of the people that surround me. I dont do it because of God, simply put, i do it for other people. I guess this is a really bad reason. I really want to have a strong conviction for Catholicism, maybe i just need to learn more about my faith.


Lent starts tmw.
This Lent... My Sacrifices

1. Pray more
2. be more proactive about.... everything
3. read more
4. eat less (no eating out/sugar water)
5. learn to defend My personal faith


Fill, out!

So, one of my hobbies, i guess for the past year, year and a half is collecting Shirt Woot Shirts. To say the very least, they're entertaining. I get them off their site, shirt.woot.com They have really cool designs occasionally on the weekends. People design shirts and they vote each week and sell them during the weekends. But everyday they sell a design that their staff designs. This was todays,


My ArchNemesis. The Teddybear Slayer


This was the highlight of my day! haha, i ended up not buying it.

Fill, out.

Passion

So, ive been reading this great book, "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss, that i mentioned in my previous post and i've come to think a lot about Love. Well, in a non pertaining to a relationship between a man and a woman, but Passion.

This last weeek, i've been trying to improve the "quality" of my life. Yea, Quality, what does that mean? I think, im thinking in terms of accomplishing things and just experiencing life to its fullest, not experiencing everything possible, but finding out what things you love and dont and focus on those things. I guess finding what your interests are and actively pursuing them. I think i have a lot of little passions in my life. And in a general, broader way of approaching it, i think my passion is to help others. In all the things that involve the thing that is my life, in some sort of way im helping others. Some people say they want to change the world is some way, make an impact. i think id be fine just doing day to day stuff for people who need it. Is that weird. Its not much of a passion, i guess there's not that much ambition in it, but i think its something i do best. maybe not. Sometimes i think im selfish and think what if all these things that i do when im not doing my "passion" what if im thinking too selfishly? My mother once told me i lack selfishness. She says, "you need to be selfish sometimes for your own good, do something that helps you! Then you can help others" I end up thinking about that a lot. In order to help others, i need to improve myself. It sounds simple enough, but its really difficult. I find its much easier to help others than yourself.

.......................................................................................................................................................

i thought about her again. Am i messing up? Should i not like her, because she has a boyfriend. Man, im really bad, i shouldnt be doing this. Im not deliberately going out with her or anything, i guess just as a friend im seeing her on occasion. Is it wrong to want them to break up? hahaha, ehhh....... man im a lonely lonely guy. sigh~ i want a girlfriend.

The First of Many Perhaps

Blogging, what an interesting idea.

I choose this to be private, but somehow it doesnt feel like it. Who came up with the idea of writing down stuff online? I feel confused about it, but it feels pretty good, having some kind of outlet for all the things that go on in my life. Considering i never really vent or anything.

I love to write, not good writing, but writing. Somehow writing things down on a journal or blog i feel in my mind a wave of peace and serenity.

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Today i had dinner with a friend, yes it was a she, a certain she that i really like, i cant tell her though cuz she has a certain someone as well, its not me. I thought in my head, man, this sucks, at the same time, she could break up with him any day. Here is the situation. ~.~ Her relationship is long distance and they meet once a month flying back and forth taking turns. Its really amazing. I really dont want to ruin what they have cuz it seems like they have something really good. But at the same time, i feel like i have an opportunity to fill in a void. i dont want to be a homewrecker, but i can help feeling that way. Of course, i havent acted on my feelings, but i want to be close with her.

Sigh~! I hate when i really like someone. I get obsessed and overthink all the possibilites and worry way too much over nothing. I'm trying really hard not to do it, but here i go ranting on and on about it. When i like someone i really like them for long periods of time. This one started ummm, exactly one week ago :)

So anyways we had dinner tonight in a nice restaurant and the food was pretty good, not awesome. I've been really in to cooking recently and i think i have a nack for cooking knowledge as well as actually cooking. But anyway, we had good conversations, and there were only 1 or 2 awkward pauses, but i managed to pull some stuff out of my head. We talked about our families, our goals, and good books that we are reading, in her case many books that she read partially. I especially enjoyed that part. (side note, if you're looking for a book to read, read The History of Love by Nicole Krauss) After dinner, we went to eat icecream and sat outside under a umbrella in the rain. we talked about our past love interests, well, mostly mine, i couldnt tell her she was the one current interest i had, so i told her about the time when i came remotely close to beginning a relationship with a girl. haha, she knew her. :( The ride back we talked about meeting up again sometime in the near future. She sounded really excited about it, so did I and we parted with her choosing a time a place! The End

I think im a deep romatic, or maybe i've been watching too many romance movies. :P I don't know but i romaticize about destiny and fate and all that stuff that i dont really believe in, i just with it was that easy. However, the truth is you gotta work hard for Love.

Anyways, That was today's highlight. I hope this leads somewhere good!